Arburg invited shoppers, vendor companions and commerce press to its U.S. headquarters in Rocky Hill, Connecticut, in late September as part of an open residence that features seven reveals, along with working molding cells, along with its Freeformer additive manufacturing machine, one amongst its service vehicles and a digital corporations kiosk.
Martin Baumann, managing director of Arburg Inc., the German agency’s U.S. subsidiary, addressed attendees, laying out among the many challenges of the current market, along with the company’s rising focus and capabilities to help U.S. shoppers with turnkey duties. Significantly, Rocky Hill is designated as an Arburg Technical Manufacturing facility (ATF), turning into a member of ATFs inside the Czech Republic and Pinghu, China, as web sites which will customise explicit order machines and full work cells with customer-specific requirements utilizing native software program and auxiliary gear suppliers.
Arburg’s Open House event at its Rocky Hill, Connecticut, facility featured seven reveals, along with numerous injection molding cells. Provide: Arburg
Baumann acknowledged that capital funding has been depressed for some time, nonetheless that his agency is “normally, fairly optimistic” about enterprise shifting into 2025, noting that the U.S. stays a superb space for manufacturing. This has been made particularly true by ongoing reshoring of duties which have returned to the states after being shifted overseas. “Reshoring is a huge deal,” Baumann instructed attendees, noting that, “you all have one or two examples of a enterprise coming once more.”
In October in the midst of the agency’s press conference on the Fakuma commerce truthful in Friedrichshafen, Germany, Arburg executives echoed Baumann’s analysis of market challenges. New Managing Director Steffen Kroner reported that the company generated revenue of €784 million in 2023, with product sales monitoring beneath that decide inside the current 12 months. “In 2024, there have been some sporadic success tales due to numerous engaging duties, nonetheless the state of affairs with regards to incoming orders stays weak,” Kroner says. At Fakuma, Arburg forecast that consolidated turnover for 2024 would can be found in at €620 million, which, if that decide held, will be 23% lower than 2023, 12 months over 12 months.
In separate suggestions, Tobias Baur, newly named managing director product sales and after product sales at Arburg, well-known in his statements that the company observed clear weaknesses in market enchancment inside the Americas, along with the U.S.
Native-to-Native Method
As launched at NPE2024, Arburg is planning to assemble machines exterior of its world headquarters in Lossburg, Germany, for the first time. On the open residence in Connecticut, Baumann instructed Plastics Know-how that the company had not however determined the place it can arrange a model new facility for assembly in North America, as a result of it was nonetheless assessing potential areas. At Fakuma, Arburg reiterated {{that a}} final decision on location has not been made however as well as well-known that the first Allrounder Golden Electrical EVO injection molding machines had been assembled on the agency’s ATC facility in Pinghu, China, as part of the local-to-local method.
Mike Sancoucy, vp of product sales and turnkey methods at Arburg, walked attendees by way of the company’s work cell capabilities, along with examples of newest duties and value calculators. “What’s a turnkey system?” Sansoucy requested rhetorically. “It’s a jigsaw puzzle that begins with the enterprise — that’s the center piece of the puzzle.” He highlighted the company’s collaborations with moldmaker Foboha by way of the years, noting that the company’s necessary manufacturing unit is solely 45 minutes from Arburg’s world headquarters in Lossburg, Germany. A Foboha cube mould was in operation on the event molding 2K closures. In U.S., Sansoucy says Arburg has three enterprise managers and 6 enterprise engineers dedicated to turnkey methods. The company could even create a turnkey system for an present Arburg press, which is a change from earlier precedent.
By the use of return on funding, Sansoucy walked by way of quite a few eventualities, along with completely computerized and with numerous ranges of operator interjection. He did phrase that difficulties to search out labor have made exclusively computerized work cells further fascinating.
On the event, a 200-ton, two-shot machine combined nylon and LSR in a single half, with the machine that features tailor-made platens to supply extra room and an optimized second injection unit. Working with Administration Automation Group (CAG; Warwick, Rhode Island) Arburg created the turnkey cell solely inside the U.S. CAG’s Mike English well-known that the cell featured completely built-in Yaskawa and KUKA robots, with the LSR pump and temperature administration unit tied to the machine administration by way of OPC UA protocols.
Baumann says that companywide Arburg has larger than 375 specialists working in work cell home with 1,500 turnkey duties achieved together with than 100 companions. “We see further demand for turnkey choices the place we put the entire system collectively,” Baumann said. “We now need to make the machines smarter, since we do have a experience gap in our enterprise. There are many folks retiring, so we now have to insert their data into the HMI.”